Cancer is among those severe medical conditions which need timely and proper treatment. When the doctor diagnoses someone with cancer, they suggest the right treatment. It mainly depends on the type and stage of cancer, area of the body, and extent. So, chemotherapy is the most common option when choosing a cancer treatment in Gurgaon.
However, it is due to the technological advancements that have paved the way for various options besides chemotherapy. The alternatives to chemo may include hormonal therapy, immunotherapy, targeted therapy, etc. The main reason people choose these alternatives is due to the severe side effects of chemo.
Why Are People Looking for Alternatives to Chemotherapy?
Chemotherapy kills malignant cells, but despite its effectiveness and potential for lifesaving, it is extremely hazardous. Among the serious adverse effects are anaemia, exhaustion, hair loss, nausea, and vomiting. Before or after chemotherapy, patients may also need to undergo additional therapies or procedures, including radiation therapy or surgery.
Doctors may prescribe medicines in addition to chemotherapy, depending on the kind and stage of cancer, to assist patients in preventing side effects from these powerful but harmful medications. Cancer patients may prefer to discuss chemotherapy alternatives with their oncologist and decide on possibilities based on their cancer’s kind, severity, and location.
How Can Alternative Medicine Help People with Cancer?
Alternative cancer treatments might not directly treat your cancer, but they might be able to help you deal with its symptoms and signs, such as weariness, stress, nausea and pain, vomiting, concern, and trouble sleeping.
“Alternative medicine” refers to treatments that healthcare professionals don’t typically provide. Lung cancer doctors and other providers are including alternative therapies alongside conventional therapies in treatment programs. The researchers examine these therapies and the evidence supporting them grows. The doctors often use the strategy of integrated medicine to treat the cancer patients.
Combining these evidence-based integrative medicine techniques with conventional therapies may help ease several symptoms related to cancer and cancer treatment. However, conventional treatments are frequently not completely replaced by complementary or alternative approaches. You may consider your alternative treatment options to find the ideal balance with the help of your doctor.
Other Treatment Options
- Surgery
Most cancers, except blood cancers, can be treated surgically, with the best oncologists in Gurgaon seeking to remove all or almost all of a solid tumour. Early-stage tumours that haven’t migrated to other body parts respond particularly well to this therapy.
Many individuals with stage 1 malignancies require surgery and no additional treatments, though this depends on the size of the tumour and other circumstances. Additionally, surgery can treat cancer even when the tumour has grown outside of the original site.
Surgery plays a significant role in expanding cancer treatment choices, even for patients with advanced disease. It’s really good that surgery now plays a wider range of roles. Minimally invasive surgery can be an alternative, depending on the type of cancer and its stage.
- Immunotherapy
Immunotherapy which is a more recent cancer treatment stimulates the patient’s immune system to attack cancer. Different cancer types are treatable with immunotherapy, and it may be successful in curing even the most difficult-to-treat and advanced tumours. But several efficient, FDA-approved medications can now treat several malignancies.
Numerous individuals now have more options thanks to immunotherapy, which is sometimes the first line of treatment for some patients. Patients don’t experience hair loss. They don’t feel sick or throw up. They typically only encounter minor side effects, if any.
Nevertheless, some patients may develop negative effects based on the medication used and the type of cancer being treated. An IV infusion is used to give immunotherapies. Additionally, immunotherapy gives some patients with advanced cancers a therapeutic choice they previously lacked, sometimes extending their lives beyond what would have been anticipated.
- Targeted Therapies
Precision medicine, commonly referred to as targeted therapy, is used by lung cancer doctors to create drugs for each patient’s cancer. They determine a genetic profile by testing a tumour or blood sample. This enables medical professionals to treat patients with medication targeting cancer-causing genes.
Cancer may be activated or inactive by up to five or six gene pathways. Through genetic testing, doctors can determine which medications to take and which to avoid using.
Pill- or IV-delivered medications kill cancer cells or prevent them from increasing. Similar to immunotherapy, one can opt for targeted therapies at any time, including as the initial course of action, to prevent cancer from returning, or if it does. These drugs often work without hurting healthy cells to slow the growth of cancer cells.
- Hormone Therapy
Specific cell types’ behaviour is controlled by hormones, proteins, or substances that the body generates. For instance, the proper operation of several bodily components depends on hormones like progesterone, oestrogen, and testosterone.
Your bodies also contain additional hormones, including insulin, cortisol, adrenaline, and thyroid hormones. Different glands and organs in the body produce various types of hormones.
Hormones are essential for some tumours to grow. As a result, treatments that alter or block hormones may occasionally help to slow the growth of specific tumours. Hormone treatment, hormonal therapy, or endocrine therapy describes using hormones to treat cancer.
Hormone treatment is best for the majority of cases of breast cancer and prostate cancer that are sex hormone-dependent. Hormone therapy can be an effective treatment for treating other malignancies too.
Because the hormones that hormone therapy targets circulate throughout the body, it is a systemic treatment. The medications used in hormone therapy look for and target hormones all across the body. This sets it apart from treatments that focus on a particular body part, like radiation therapy and the majority of surgical operations.
So, undoubtedly it is possible to treat cancer without chemotherapy. It is better to consult thebest Oncologists in Gurgaon. Therefore, they can help to suggest the best method that would help your case.